In 1843, explorer and topographer John C. Fremont described the historic
ranges, and subsequent disappearance of buffalo in the Snake River country:

"The extraordinary rapidity with which the buffalo is disappearing
from our territories will not appear surprising when we remember the great
scale on which their destruction is yearly carried on. With inconsiderable
exceptions, the business of the American trading posts is carried on in
their skins; every year the Indian villages make new lodges, for which the
skin of the buffalo furnishes the material; and in that portion of the country
where they are still found, the Indians derive their entire support from
them, and slaughter them with a thoughtless and abominable extravagance.
Like the Indians themselves, they have been a characteristic of the Great
West; and as, like them, they are visibly diminishing, it will be interesting
to throw a glance backward through the last twenty years, and give some
account of their former distribution through the country, and the limit
of their western range.

"The information is derived principally from Mr. Fitzpatrick, supported
by my own personal knowledge and acquaintance with the country. Our knowledge
does not go farther back than the spring of 1824, at which time the buffalo
were spread in immense numbers over the Green river and Bear river valleys,
and through all the country lying between the Colorado, or Green river;
the meridian of Fort Hall then forming the western limit of their range.
The buffalo then remained for many years in that country, and frequently
moved down the valley of the Columbia, on both sides of the river as far
as the Fishing falls. Below this point they never descended in any numbers.
About the year 1834 or 1835 they began to diminish very rapidly, and continued
to decrease until 1838 or 1840, when, with the country we have just described,
they entirely abandoned all the waters of the Pacific north of Lewis's fork
of the Columbia. At that time, the Flathead Indians were in the habit of
finding their own buffalo on the heads of the Salmon river, and other streams
of the Columbia; but now they never meet with them farther west than the
three forks of the Missouri or the plains of the Yellowstone river (Fremont
1845:143-4)."

Starvation Times

August 29, 1843 close to Fort Hall:

"A number of Indians came immediately over to visit us, and
several men were sent to the village with goods, tobacco, knives, cloth,
vermilion, and the usual trinkets, to exchange for provisions. But they
had no game of any kind; and it was difficult to obtain any roots from them,
as they were miserably poor, and had but little to spare from their winter
stock of provisions. Several of the Indians drew aside their blankets, showing
me their lean and bony figures; and I would not any longer tempt them with
a display of our merchandise to part with their wretched subsistence, when
they gave as a reason that it would expose them to temporary starvation.
A great portion of the region inhabited by this nation formerly abounded
in game; the buffalo ranging about in herds, as we had found them on the
eastern waters, and the plains dotted with scattered bands of antelope;
but so rapidly have they disappeared within a few years, that now, as we
journeyed along, and occasional buffalo skull and a few wild antelope were
all that remained of the abundance which had covered the country with animal
life (Fremont 1845:143)."

Reduction of Fort Hall Reservation

1880 – May 14Agreement – Shoshoni, Bannock, and SheepeaterCede to the U.S. a certain tract.

This agreement provided for the cession of the Lemhi reservation to the
U.S., and the removal of the Indians to the Fort Hall reservation. It also
provided for the cessions of a portion of the Fort Hall reservation to the
U.S. The Indians on the Lemhi reservation refused to remove to the Fort Hall
reservation,
and an agreement was not ratified until 1889.

1881 - Mar. 3"Agreement - Shoshoni and Bannock

"Cede to U.S. right of way through Fort Hall reservation for Utah
and Northern railroad.
Ratified by Congress July 3, 1882. This agreement provided for right of
way 100 feet wide, with sufficient ground for depots, stations, etc., containing
in the aggregate 772 acres (B.A.E. Report: 1896-97)."
[Note: Act of Congress ratified this cession on July 3, 1882.]

"Congress ratifies agreement by which said Indians surrender the
following lands, all of which are contained in T. 6 S., R. 34 E., of Boise
meridian: W. one-half sec. 25; all of a sec. 26; E. one-half sec. 27; NW.
quarter sec. 36; N. half sec. 35; NE. quarter of SW. quarter sec. 35; NE.
quarter of the NE. quarter of sec. 34; comprising an area of 1,840 acres,
more or less, saving and excepting so much of the above-mentioned tracts
as has been heretofore and is hereby relinquished to the U.S. for the use
of the Utah and Northern and Oregon Short Line railways (B.A.E. Report:
1896-97)."

1898 – FebruaryShoshone-Bannock agree to cede 418,000 acres of reservation around and
south of Pocatello for $600,000.

In 1889, the government opened up 239,837 acres that was known as the
"land grab" and was the first cession of tribal lands. The second
cession in 1900 took another 418,560 acres that included the city of Pocatello.
By 1963, the Shoshone-Bannocks retained approximately 540,764 acres but
since then the Tribes have acquired additional lands.

The cessions were also the result of cession agreements made with the
Tribes as well as cessions authorized by the General Allotment and Dawes
Act during the years 1887 to 1911. Through the cession agreements and the
Allotment Act tribal people were allotted specific portions of reservation
lands that generally established the Fort Hall Indian Reservation.

Background from portion of Martin S. Garretson's
"The End", 1883. Image courtesy of National Museum of Wildlife Art.